I’m on my way to Vilna. Indeed, it sounds metaphorical, and in some ways, it is. Because the Vilna that I am going to and the Vilna that stands somewhere in the heart of Lithuania are indeed two different places. The same goes for Telz, Ponovezh, Kovna, and Slabodka. I hope to visit all of those cities, and more, during the three-day whirlwind mission organized by the inimitable Eli Slomovits, who is a master at arranging and organizing logistics of trips that span the breadth of the globe, and led by Rav Elchonon Baron, the former emissary to Lithuania, who was appointed by the Moetzes and the Bais Din of Bnei Brak, and Reb Eli Meir Cohen, who was the first to approach me to join.
The goal of the trip is not just to experience the history, but, under the leadership of these askonim, to do what we can to help in the restoration of botei kevorim in Lithuania, some of which have been desecrated openly and others that are in neglect.
I understood the dichotomy of the visit when I unwittingly blurted out the bitterness of a Litvak who read too many accounts of what the savage peasants of Lithuania and their German cheerleaders did to so many members of my father’s families and those of my wife’s parents’ families after the Germans began Operation Barbarossa eighty-three years ago this June.
I was in a doctor’s office this past Friday and was injected with a minute amount of a radioactive substance needed for a certain type of test. My piquant nature led me to remark to the nurse, albeit in a rhetorical manner, “This is not going to set off your Geiger counters when I walk out of here?” The Nordic-looking middle-aged technician replied, rather innocently, expecting that there would be no problem, “Of course not. Unless you are going to be flying somewhere overseas, you won’t have a problem.”
My heart skipped a beat (so if there’s a problem with the test, you know why). “I am actually flying to Eastern Europe on Sunday! What am I supposed to do?”
Although this is not germane to the article, they did, like a school principal, give me a note. (“Please excuse Mordecai Kamenetzky if he triggers a radiation alarm and shuts down Kennedy Airport for a dirty bomb scare.”) What happened, of course, is fodder for a different article.
But then the technician, of course, went into yenta mode and asked, “Which country are you flying to?”
“Lithuania.”
“Lithuania? What’s in Lithuania?”
I looked up from the bed in which I was receiving the tests and could not help but notice those Teutonic features the technician had inherited. Suddenly, my sardonic, Litvisher memories and something mordant emanated from me.
“In Lithuania, I am going to see death and destruction.”
When I realized that I had completely confounded the innocent technician, who (I later found out) had only heard about the Holocaust from another patient, a survivor who had written a book detailing his personal harrowing experience, I decided to mitigate my morbidity by adding, “But I am going there to look deeper than the topographical death and destruction and evil. I am going there to find the glory of the past and the foundations of our continued and future existence and flourishing that are beneath the apparent death and destruction we will topographically experience.”
I am not sure that I was understood, but I got it off my chest. I think that most everyone who was wounded as a byproduct of the Holocaust reacts slightly viscerally when asked, even innocently, a question that appears to show ignorance of the profound historical impact that the events in Europe, even some 85 years ago, still have on the scions of survivors.
Actually, I have been to Vilna once before. I was zoche to accompany gedolei Yisroel who went to Vilna to commemorate the completion of the Dirshu Mishnah Berurah cycle. There were visits to the famous kevorim in Vilna, the Shnipishok cemetery, the newer cemetery where the remains of the Vilna Gaon were transferred and Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky is buried, and, of course, tefillos and tears at the kever of Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz. I cannot forget that evening, as we all davened for the refuah of my dear mechutan, Rav Yaakov Landau, who ultimately succumbed not long after.
But those visits on a late Thursday night were in the bitter cold, some during a strong snowstorm. The next morning, we made a quick visit to Kovna and Slabodka and other very significant mekomos where Yidden were murdered en masse. But it was an Erev Shabbos and there was so much more time that I wanted to spend on the streets where my grandfather once walked. During that trip, I got a glimpse of the iconic structure that once housed the family of my great-uncle, Rav Avrohom Grodzensky, and the home of the Slabodka Yeshiva.
A little more than a month ago, Reb Eli Meir Cohen, an old friend from my days in Bais Medrash Govoah, through my years as a curator of seforim in Pittsburgh, and even through the establishment of the Yeshiva Gedolah in the Five Towns, asked me if I would join him and Rav Baron, a devoted askan who works tirelessly on behalf of saving kevorim and the sites where the kedoshim perished in Lithuania. I felt a great draw not only to return, but to help contribute in some way to the cause.
I am not sure that hearing from a son of a native of Tituvyenai, Lithuania, or the son-in-law of natives of Waski, Lithuania, or Kaunus, would impress the officials, but certainly, if there is any reason to preserve the heritage of Americans in countries abroad, I will try my best to represent the cause.
I looked at the itinerary, which is filled with names of places like Shnipishok, which we all know is in tremendous danger. What will happen to Zaretch? Will Suderve, where the Gaon is buried, be upheld? Green Barg, where Rav Chaim Telzer is buried, is in terrible disrepair. The cemeteries in Slabodka lay to waste as in Vikliya and others.
And unlike the few stops that I made on the previous trip. This one contained names of places that I was all too familiar with as well. Telz where my father had learned, Kelm, where my zaides had learned, Ponovezh the very namesake of the yeshiva which nourished my emergence into adulthood.
I was not sure whether or not to make the journey, but a video clip from a chaver of mine from Yeshivas Ponovezh made me finalize my decision. It was made by Reuvein Wolf, who is the son of Holocaust survivors, and is spearheading, together with other askonim, the massive effort. The broadcast was sent during the massive event in Bell Works to support the efforts of Keren Olam HaTorah to raise the $107 million shortfall that yeshivos will unfortunately experience because of the cut in funding they formerly relied upon. In the clip, Reb Reuvein explains why he became so deeply involved in the efforts to save the yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel.
He explained that he grew up as the son of Holocaust survivors in Belgium. His father was the sole male survivor of his shtetel in Europe. His mother was hidden by gentiles. His entire life, he had heard from his parents, “Where was American Jewry when they took us to the concentration camps? Where was American Jewry when they burned us?”
Rav Michoel Ber Weismandel went around begging, “$50 would save a neshamah!” What did we do?
Reb Reuvein faced the camera, and if I can paraphrase, he said, “When Rav Moshe Hillel [Hirsch] told us the terrible situation, I knew that my father’s question was ringing in my head. I had to do something. What about you?”
I looked at all the names and places on the three-page itinerary and thought of his words. I hope that my hishtadlus and my essays can have some impact.
Just saying.
